


Fangs

by AsbestosMouth



Series: Mayflower [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, British Comedy, F/M, I blame everyone apart from myself, Is 2008 modern?, It's a bit crackfic to be honest guv, London King's Landing is Best King's Landing, M/M, Oddly not in That Way for once, Pop Culture, Ramsay haunts my dreams, Ramsay is his own warning, Vampires, Willas is a rubbish vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:06:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6659275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsbestosMouth/pseuds/AsbestosMouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willas Tyrell doesn't really want to go down the <em>Mayflower</em>, Tyrion's pub deep in the more gentrified end of Flea Bottom. It's his local boozer, his friends pretty much live there, but he has important scientific research to complete and a cheeky half usually descends into an all-night session and rampant hang overs the next day. But Jaime asked Brienne asked Willas, and it would be rude to say no.</p><p>Moral of the tale - never get drunk when Ramsay Bolton lurks with intent.</p><p>It is the vampire comedy that everyone wishes hadn't happened. Raise your glasses, things might get a bit bloody round here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While up to the elbows in writing other fics (mostly _1644_ , that fic does weird things to my brain), I end up getting plot bunnies. This is one of them. Actually, it is a mixture of two parts; vampires, and whether I could ever get anyone to feel an ounce of sympathy for poor wee Ramsay, bless his cotton socks. The lovely [SnowWhiteKnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowWhiteKnight/pseuds/SnowWhiteKnight) told me that it may be impossible. 
> 
> So this happened. Like someone tells me something is impossible. Tish and pish I say.

* * *

 

Never. Ever. Go drinking with Ramsay Bolton.

 

Not that Willas had gone out of his way to go down the pub with anyone, but he had been shopping (he hated shopping, when he could be doing other more interesting things like STEM research, or hanging himself, than pouring over the nutrition on soup tins or wrangling lettuce), and then Brienne phoned and said that Jaime said they should all go and have a swift half at the _‘flower_ (Tyrion’s pub), and then that turned into a full pint (or four) with some quite vicious Lorathi gold-flecked chasers, and Robb Stark and Theon turned up because they had a sixth sense that someone was drinking alcohol without them, and of course Ramsay Bolton happened to be in the boozer at the same time as Theon (and really, it had been several years, and Greyjoy should have gone to the police because it really wasn’t on) and Willas staggered into the alleyway next to the _Mayflower_ (Tyrion gentrified Flea Bottom with his presence, his chequebook, and his cock) because he forgot where the toilets were and he really was desperate to be sick, and somehow he’d abandoned his crutch (which Loras covered in purple glitter when on yet another Bowie kick) in ALDI so he clung to the slick-wet stone walls because it was raining as always, that horrid misty drizzle that soaked through his sweater, and then Ramsay Bolton bit him.

 

Which really came as quite the shock.

 

Ramsay Bolton, creepy ex-boyfriend of Robb’s Theon, who tried to shag everything that moved (no preference to gender, preferably alive but as Willas came to know that was a moot point) to try and get Greyjoy jealous and presumably back in that weird little relationship they had, cornered him in a dank alleyway somewhere in the newly posh eastern part of King’s Landing and bit him on the neck. With vigour

 

It hurt. Not as much as it should have given the booze sloshing through his system, but it still smarted. His Jaegermeister (damn you, Tyrion, you horrible little dwarf, you wine of gods and tits, and that was wrong but he couldn’t quite understand how) addled brain swam, the buildings tilting and shimmering, looming as Bolton nuzzled his throat, pressed against him bodily, and bit him again.

 

“Um, not Theon,” he pointed out, wondering perhaps if projectile vomiting might convince Ramsay to stop gnawing, but really, you never knew with the mad bastard. He had a tattoo about flaying, and everything. He had a propensity for black leather and chains. Not emo or goth, more hardcore Valyrian supremacist (which was odd, given Ramsey was as far from blond and purple eyed as could possibly be found). Willas once had a dream/nightmare about his assailant. He thankfully woke up before the boiling oil and squeegee happened.

 

“Mmm. I know.” Another sharpness of teeth, a purr, a hand up his jumper (autumnal hued cashmere tending towards the antique bronze, Margaery said it went with his eyes) and scratching at his chest. Fingers found his nipples, nipples that rarely felt the touch of another (or Willas really, he couldn’t be bothered a lot of the time, had much better things to do, like watch paint dry or cure disease), and did this circling thing that just tickled annoyingly. Paused. Started again with vigour with added nails.

 

“Um. Not gay.” Nipples agreed. Nipples _cringed_.

 

Ramsey possessed the temerity to snicker, mouth suckling at the crook of neck where Marks and Spencer’s finest wool met soft slightly freckled Reachman skin.

 

“Mmmhmm. ‘Course you aren’t, mate. ‘Course you aren’t.”

 

Willas tilted his head to try and look Ramsay in those serial-killer eyes of his, to try and talk some sort of sense into the man and point out this really was not at all necessary, and then stopped short, sobered up horribly, brain-meltingly quickly because really, who wouldn’t at that point, and managed not to scream like some bloody girl in a ‘90s horror spoof.

 

“Um. Fangs.”

 

Must be the Jaeger. Must be the Jaeger. Oh Seven on a pogo stick. At least he refused the cinnamon Aftershock. Could have been worse. Not as bad as when Tyrion was giving out tequila and Irn Bru cocktails.

 

Ramsay grinned wider, and Willas muzzily understood with a sinking terror that the red painted about the man’s mouth was not smudged lipstick (as if Bolton would even think about lipstick, he proved disturbingly masculine and into bare-knuckle boxing but Tyrion said something about the bastard’s mother being Dothraki Traveller as if it explained everything) but blood. Tyrell blood. And those were fangs. Frigging enormous fangs. All drippy. With blood. His blood.

 

“Um. Bleeding.”

 

Ramsey purred again, licking from clavicle to earlobe. It may have been slightly pleasant if it were not the tongue of a psychopath lingering affectionately on Willas’ delicate white flesh.

 

“Pretty, ain’t it?” Affecting the Flea Bottom accent, like some up-himself Westpop star from ‘97 who really came from a posh part of the Riverlands.

 

“No?” Really very much no.

 

“You’ll get used to it, Will. Mind if I call you Will? Not that I won’t stop if you don’t like it. But you will like it. Theon liked it.”

 

“Look, is this just because you think I might look a bit like Theon in the dark? Because really, my cheekbones are better, and he is far more, well. Pretty?” Was Theon pretty? Not like Jon Snow, who was undeniably stunning, and Jaime was just the dictionary definition of handsome with those cool green eyes and that smirk that could make a woman drop her knickers in an instant. Willas flailed internally, trying desperately hard to think and that seemed really bloody difficult when someone tried to devour his poor wounded neck.

 

“No, he’s not pretty, he’s unusual. Quirky. Interesting. Fashionably weird.” Much better. Totally not as gay as thinking of Theon as pretty. Or Jaime. Jon Snow didn’t count; everyone thought him pretty. Even Stannis thought Jon Snow pretty (Stannis was the intense accountant who lurked morosely at the end of the bar in a very expensive suit, wedding ring, and gold wristwatch (and who wore watches these days?) and refused to talk to anyone apart from nice Davos the Pub who managed the _‘flower_ , who was a sound sort of man with some fascinating Merchant Navy tattoos and a non-affected Flea Bottom accent that sounded a million times grittier than Ramsay’s own).

 

A pause, and then he was nose-to-nose with a vampire. No, worse than that. He was an inch from Ramsay Bolton, more dangerous than any hellfiend or creature of darkness. Vampire. Ramsay. No wonder Boltons were so pale. Roose was the same. Oh God. Vampire. Bitten. Neck. Blood. LEECHES! It sort of hit then, actually registered, raking through the far too quickly dissolved drunken veil that left his head a-spin and smacking him about the face like Cersei Lannister on a coke rampage. Ramsay Bolton had him pinned against a wall, in an alleyway, and that would be bad enough even if the biting and blood wasn’t involved. But it was involved. Obviously.

 

“Theon will realise he can’t live without me. He craves me. He craves this.” The man sounded very convinced, and Willas found himself nodding, agreeing frantically. If he said everything Ramsay wanted him to, then he may be able to just go and finish his drink, go to bed, wake up, and then finally make that breakthrough on HIV that had promised for the last three weeks.

 

“Yes. I’m sure he will! Perhaps you should talk to him about it? Uh. Should we get back to-?”

 

Ramsay tilted his head, running a finger across Willas’ cheek. In another person it would be a sweet gesture; perhaps they would have kissed, gone to dinner and a show (always a play, never a musical, nothing too frothy, always intellectual and challenging like Goethe), drunk expensive port and discussed cheese to go with the wine, philosophy, and biological breakthroughs of the twentieth century. Another kiss, to the hand, and then Willas could have tottered off to sleep slightly drunk, snuggling his pillow in the romantic manner of the terminally, well, romantic.

 

“Or we can stay here! Whatever you want. Just. Ramsay. Please don’t kill me. Oh Gods. I have to go to work in the morning! If I don’t turn up, Varys’ll kill-”

 

”Did you know that fear tastes really fucking good, Will? Salty. Like come. All in my mouth, like I’m sucking you off with each mouthful of your blood.”

 

“Oh Gods. I’m going to be rogered to death by a gay-”

 

“Bi, Will. Bi. You all feel good to me. All holes are good holes, even the ones I make.”

 

“Bi vampire. Who will then drain me of all my blood and leave my poor desecrated corpse somewhere like a sept because that is the story of my life, isn’t it? Here I am, I have one night out with my friends, my lettuce is going to wilt, and I am going to die horribly.” If he didn’t rant, he would cry, and he was not going to give the perverted monster the satisfaction. A strange wheezing emanated from Ramsay, weird eyes glittering, and Willas realised with a jolt that the other was giggling. Actually giggling. That frightened him more than any biting, fangs, and Bolton insanity.

 

“Please, Ramsay?” Soft and desperate.

 

“I’m fucking starving, mate.” Forehead to forehead, they stared at each other. Ramsay’s pupils were blown, only the faintest grey-blue pupil visible in his excitement. “And you taste really bloody good. Huh, that’s a good pun.” He paused, Willas said nothing, and the hands at the Tyrell hips tightened, just a fraction, but enough to make hip joints creak and pain from the gammy knee race. “And you smell good. Booze and innocence, all in one package wrapped in fucking cashmere. Not gay my arse, mate, the games we could play Willas Tyrell. But I’ll be nice. Usually I play with my food. Ask Theon. Ah, can’t, can you, because you’re here with me. I told him if he didn’t come back then there would be consequences, Will. I told him, and he just doesn’t listen, does he? He stands there in those jeans that show his cock off to the world, and his tight arse all gorgeous, with his arm around another man, that that ain’t fair on a bloke, is it? Then he goes home with Robb Stark and bends over for him, like he did for me. And he wonders why I’m pissed off, Will, and I’m just like Theon, you belong to me, luv, you know I got my claim on you, but-” Ramsay shook his head, then licked his tongue over his fangs.

 

Willas let the vampire reminisce, no doubt about Theon’s penis (and really, he didn’t need the image, especially as Greyjoy did tend towards a more snug choice in legwear leaving everyone to know which side he dressed) before deciding that the best course of action was attack. Tyrell honour and all of that. He took a breath, lunged forward, biting Ramsay as hard as he could on the throat. Skin popped, blood occurred, and it was vile. Disgusting. Awful. Cold blood. Cold Bolton. The flesh between his teeth seemed flabby and flaccid, like a defrosted piece of chicken, but Willas was a Tyrell, scion of an ancient (rich, arrogant, annoyingly attractive for the most part because his siblings (even Garlan) outshone him looks-wise) Highgarden family, and he grew as strong as his brothers and sister. Ish.

 

“Fuck, yeah. Harder!” Teeth slashed. Ramsay ground his pelvis.

 

Oh bugger. Wrong thing. Really wrong thing to do. Oh Gods. There was a lot of blood. Willas’ neck felt like the first day of the Battle of the Field of Fire. He pulled back, just remembering to detach his mouth first rather than take a hunk of dank meat with him, spitting and heaving and trying not to swallow any of that horrible stuff swilling at his tonsils but a bit seemed to slip down so he was was finally sick all over Ramsay, who didn’t particularly care as he tongued the sluggishly bleeding wounds he created with his fangs and drank and drank and drank until the world turned black and frozen and Willas fell over into a pile of dustbins with an almighty crash as Bolton wiped the back of his hand across his now rosy-hued lips and looked more alive than he ever seemed to be before

 

and Willas?

 

Willas _died_.

 

* * *

 

A cool flannel on his forehead signified he wasn’t dead. Which, again, came as quite a surprise. Keeping his eyes closed because really, the world seemed more understandable that way, Willas tried to gauge the circumstances. Definitely a mattress under him (possibly orthopaedic), some impressively fluffy pillows, high-count cotton duvet cover. The bed smelled heavily of cologne, and he recognised it, though the pleasantness had never been this overpowering. His manager, Varys, always wore lilac aftershave by the gallon (and possibly favoured a touch of rouge, and face powder, definitely tight-lined his eyelashes, but no one dared ask because, really, Varys) but the scent of the bed was thicker. Underlying notes of sandalwood and copper. For a moment it seemed like wine tasting. Heady tones of musk, a salty caramel shimmering a-top, and sharper suggestions of bleached linen.

 

Why did his bed smell of Jaime?

 

No, Brienne. Jaime and Brienne. Sex. Definitely the whiff of sex. Lust and sweat and climax. What? No!

 

He sat bolt upright with a whimper.

 

“They’re having sex, oh my Gods, I didn’t know they were hav-. Hi, Brienne.”

 

His best friend in the whole wide world gaped back, wide mouth parted like a gutted goldfish. She was tucked into a gold-striped Aegon I period armchair, all legs and men’s pyjama bottoms and untidy hair that seemed a bit fashionable in the scruffiness, tending towards a bedhead fauxhawk. Hung over. Her sleepy-tired expressive eyes, blue as topaz, verged upon the horrified.

 

“We aren’t having sex! Much. Just sometimes-”

 

“Yes we are, wench.” Jaime, who seemed as golden and leonine as ever (he never got hangovers, something about genetics and Willas itched to check to see if that was true, but Varys would probably steal the Lannister’s tissues, breed tiny Jaime clones, and sell them on the black market to Essosi slavers and then keep some for himself for whatever nefarious deeds his manager indulged upon outwith the lab), stretched, scratched his enviably muscled belly, and climbed on top of Brienne as if the woman were the most comfortable chaise longue. “All over the house. On the settee, and the kitchen table. Under the stairs because you bent over in leggings to look for the hand vac. Several times in the shower. When you were herding whatever a quinoa is.”

 

“Keen-wah, not quinoa.”

 

“Quinoa,” Jaime shot back cheerfully at Brienne, earning him a Look.

 

“Sex. In the bed. Oh Gods. No!” Willas flailed, reflected he spent much of the previous evening flailing, and his hand flew to his neck. Smooth skin met his touch, a little cool but definitely not ridged with a peppering of bite marks. “Have you changed the sheets? Oh Gods, is your fluid touching me? Is it?”

 

“I changed the bed before we put you to sleep, Willas. Are you okay? You were so drunk.” Brienne reached out her hand, nails bitten and skin roughly Brienne-ish and therefore wonderful, touching his forehead and checking for a fever. “You fell over in the alley, over the bins. We found you with a banana skin on your head like a hat, and a cat eating fish bones off your chest. You’d been sick.”

 

“Ramsay?” Weakly, clutching at the duvet. Perhaps this was all a hideous dream. Not a fantasy, not with Bolton involved. His erotic pleasures were romantic, elegant. They included champagne and chocolate-dipped raspberries. Intelligent sparkling conversation. Flirtatious glances across rooms. Piano playing. Yearning. Letters. Wistful looks out of windows into the grey mists of country estates. His desires involved people diving into shallow pools whilst dressed in riding breeches and white linen shirts (not gay, women wore breeches too, but long leather boots featured prominently). Buttoned up passions. Willas based his naughty wants upon novels written by witty young women living two centuries previously, more social satire than romance, but that didn’t stop the man. Possibly horses. Not erotically, of course. Sometimes he was Mr. Darcy. Sometimes? Sometimes he really wasn’t. Sometimes he was Lizzy. Sometimes he was a captive midshipman upon a ship during the Conqueror’s wars, innocence and breeding being debauched by a boatload of lusty sweaty manly pirates, but he never admitted that one. That one was a bit gay.

 

“Did he push you into the bins?” Jaime perked. “We could get him done for ABH. Does this mean I can finally beat the little shit up? Tyrion says we can do it in the carpark, it’ll be fine. He’s paid off the Guards already, but Baz Selmy wants to have a go off the record as well. We could charge spectators a tenner a go and everything.”

 

“He came in a little while after you went outside, said something to Theon, and then left.” Brienne poked Jaime hard in the stomach. Her finger skittered off the musculature. Willas envied. He was willow and slenderness (gammy knee obviously not conducive to exercise) rather than chiseled Valyrian-style god. It was not fair, being in a group of friends that included Jaime (beautiful, perfect(ish), sarky, sex-magnet) and Tyrion (dwarf, massive cock (apparently), really funny, stupidly rich). Even the outliers such as Robb, Theon and Jon Snow were handsome, weirdly hipster attractive, and pretty in turn. One sniff of the possibility of shagging one of the others and no one looked at Willas with his nicely fitting dark jeans, sensible shoes, penchant for science, and cheekbones. Cheekbones never won fair maiden. Neither did biochemistry. Not that he cared, but it was the principle of the matter. He once considered having someone (Theon, people knew Theon had a lot of sex because, well, Theon obviously) start a rumour about his impressive sexual wiles and copious appendage, but decided that if such a ruse worked he could be sued under the Trade Description Act for wilful exaggeration.

 

“Oh. Right.”

 

“Tea?”

 

“Tea.”

 

Five minutes later Willas drank the tea, paused momentarily as his stomach decided that it required another warm wet and bloodier beverage, then projectile vomited all over the bedspread.

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

 

“That’s it, we need to get you to the doctor, and I am not taking no for an answer.”

 

Three days in. Willas trembled beneath the duvet cover. He was quite sure that he was dying. Again. It hurt.

 

“You haven’t eaten, you’ve barely drunk anything. I’m really worried about you, Willas. This isn’t like you - okay, you do forget to eat when you’re working, but this is different. And how you react to light. Could it be a migraine? Can you get migraines that are full-body painful?” 

 

Brienne smelled of stress, a maroon-purple which roiled miserably in his head, with streaks of yellow that he understood as fear. Who would think that vampires could get synesthesia. Did Ramsay Bolton (oh Gods, this was almost as bad as having sex with the man) see scents as colour? No, he refused to think of his, well, sire. Did that mean he technically was now Roose’s grandson? Was Roose Bolton one as well? Why were there no books? Where had all the textbooks gone? Where was the research, for Gods’ sake? He searched the Westernet endlessly, phone glued to his palm, but came across nothing but perverted fanfiction about that idiotic sparkly tool who stalked teenage girls.

 

“I can’t go outside, Bri. I’ll be fine, I just-”

 

She gave him that Look. Willas always quailed under the sapphire glare. Her underlying blueness, upon which all emotions layered like oil paint, was the same colour as her lovely eyes.

 

“Um. Perhaps a doctor could come here? I think I might be a little anaemic.” Understatement of the century there. “Maybe I need some iron-rich food?”

 

“Spinach? You like spinach.”

 

“Um. Black pudding?”

 

Brienne paused. “But you’ve been vegetarian for the last eight years.”

 

“Perhaps that’s it? Perhaps my body is rebelling against my plant-based diet? Maybe a nice rare steak. A bloody rare steak, all red and bloody and-”

 

“I’m getting the doctor to visit in the morning. You’re not well.”

 

She marched decisively from the room (duck egg blue walls, darker carpet, more gold faffy bits of furniture, a bit boudoir) - Jaime complained about Willas taking up their bed (sex, they had sex even when he was in the house, and he heard and sensed every wanton moaning thrust of it which really did not help whatsoever and tended to bring on headaches) so he was now installed in the smaller guest room which thankfully had an en suite bathroom in which he could hide and scrub himself raw to try and wash away the thought of lovely Brienne, kind and beautiful and brave Brienne, doing all sorts of filthy things to Jaime Lannister. Who mostly subbed. Pushily, of course. How he knew, he did not know, but Willas  _ knew _ .

 

* * *

 

Not the best way to be woken up. Someone licked him, on that soft bit of skin under his ear where worshipful kisses should be adoringly bestowed by one’s beloved. Cold slithery slimy tongue, chill mouth, hand in his hair like it belonged. Dead scent, like hydrangea and formaldehyde, and very dark purples and blacks.

 

“GowayRamsay. Stop lickin’” 

 

The bodily weight shifted, the bed creaked and an arm insinuated around Willas’ torso. Bolton fitted against him quite well, which was something he would later cringe about, but since he was warm, sleepy, and wanting to snuggle back under the lovely duvet and have another good long snooze, for the moment the horror did not register.

 

“How’d you get in?”

 

“Window’s open. Probably Brienne trying to make you healthy, poor bitch.” Sniggering, fingers creeping under the duvet and resting lightly on Willas’ bare chest. “So you don’t die or shit. Can’t believe you came back, mate, not what I was thinking since you’re not Theon, but since you’re here...”

 

The hand slid downwards, proprietarily. 

 

“Not sleeping with you, Ramsay.” Willas turned over and turned his back to the vampire, mattress bouncing (not orthopaedic), closing his eyes. 

 

“Fuck’s sake. When you lot change, you’re supposed to want to shag your sire. Why aren’t you wanting to shag me? Theon shagged me, and I only bit him. I made you, you’re supposed to love me and be my slave forever, let me do whatever I want-”

 

“Goin’backtosleep.” 

 

“Frigid Highgarden twat. Just a bit of flaying and a good hard fuck, that’s all I want. And, yeah, got you something.” 

 

“Mmm. Yeah. Whatever. Night, Ramsay. Huh? Got me something?”

 

The bed squirked, and Bolton stalked off. He dropped out of the second floor window with surprising agility for a man in black leather and wearing Doc Marten boots. Willas sleepily punched the pillow back into a more pleasing shape, imagining it to be a representation of Ramsay.

 

Oddly cathartic, that.

 

Until Bolton reappeared half a minute later, just when Willas had reached that comfortable nirvana, that at one-ness with perfect pillows and duvet and bed. He stomped back over to the bed, peeled off his jacket (leather. Obviously) and climbed back in. He stole most of the duvet.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be not here? Why are you under my duvet?”

 

“I made you, it’s my duvet. All you have is mine. I got you a present, prick. Sit up.

 

“No.”

 

“Then I’ll drink it myself then.”

 

Willas paused.

 

“Drink it?”

 

“Your tea. Dinner. Whatever you call it. Supper.” Such were the difficulties of regional dialects within Westeros. “Before you starve to death like a wanker and I go back to being fuckin’ bored out my brains.”

 

That was...actually quite nice of the psychopath in his bed. Selfish, but nice. Unwilling, but since optimum comfort had been rudely snatched away, Willas pushed himself up to lean against the plethora of pointless cushions, watching Ramsay warily. He seemed pleased, almost smug, though that underlying bruise colouring swirled and ebbed and threatened on the edges of consciousness. Rummaging in the pockets of his jacket, he brought out an item wrapped in the sort of foil blanket that idiotic fell walkers were always shown covered in after helicopter rescue on the local news. The metal stripped away with a magician’s tug of his hand, leaving Willas to stare at the bag of blood casually dangling from Ramsay’s fingers.

 

“Um. Blood.”

 

Ramsay grinned darkly, an excitement dancing in those white-pale eyes, and he broke the seal with a fingernail. He had always thought that was a coke nail, being as it graced Bolton’s little finger, and hanging out with Theon apparently was a gateway to many fascinating and highly illegal substances, but no. It was to open blood bank bags. Usually he’d refuse to drink because he was just exhausted of being sick, but he didn’t want to seem impolite. He took the bag (still warm, hence the foil blanket), nausea threatening from a stomach entirely used to digesting plant matter, and took a tiny sip.

 

Blood hit, and woah. Woah.

 

Salt tingling, and texture, and heat. Life. He took another amazed swig. Really. Wine had nothing on this stuff, this beautiful, silky stuff. This was not like Ramsay’s congealed neck. There was brightness and grassy notes, a rounded honey. Smarties. He tasted Smarties. It was a goodly Muscadet of a drink, and reminded him of lazy dozing evenings tucked in a hammock in Highgarden, studying for his A-Levels, with fireflies flitting and the birds singing softly as they slept. If blood could be happy, then this was positively cheerful.

 

The bag fell crumpled and drained to the bedspread. He felt warm. Alive. Tingly all over, and as if he wanted to leap from the bed and run about in the nude like a toddler after eating too much sugar.

 

“You’re all pink,” Ramsay murmured in his ear. From his vantage point under the duvet, he slid a freezing hand between Willas’ thighs. “Be like shagging a human, but more rob-”

 

“Out.”

 

“But I fed you!”

 

“I am not having sex with you, Ramsay. Thank you for the blood, I very much appreciate your concern, but I am never going to sleep with you. You are not my type.”

 

“But I have a cock-”

 

“Out!”

 

This time, when Ramsay jumped from the window, the last thing Willas saw were two fingers sticking up at him as the vampire plummeted to the concrete below

 

* * *

  
  
No doctors were summoned. Brienne crept into the room expecting something far worse than she found; Willas making the bed, humming something from an opera (Wagner, involving Valkyries, because it suited his best and nicest friend), and talking on the phone to Margaery who wanted him to go to the pub that evening to meet her unsuitably common new boyfriend.

 

“Willas, you’re-?”

 

“I feel so much better, Bri, thank you so much for looking after me. You are the best, even if you never told me that you are sleeping with Jaime. Are you and he-?” He waved his hands about like an octopus. “Y’know. Dating?”

 

She blushed, pink and blue swirling in a pretty whirlpool with drips of violet embarrassment. “We are. We’re taking it very slow since we’ve both been hurt before, but it’s going slightly quicker since he punched Ron Connington on the nose. That might have been a bit exciting in a way.”

 

“Jaime is quite punchy, isn’t he?” All that talk of thrashing Ramsay (which couldn’t happen now, since Willas realised that the other was creating a bond forged through the mutual appreciation of fine blood, and if Ramsay died then Willas would probably starve to death as the thought of taking anything from an unwilling victim sat low and stony in his gut), and betting, and the casual violence thrown into many conversations pointed towards an angry streak within the Lannister psyche. “More action than words. Oh, are you going down the  _ ‘flower  _ later? Margie has a new boyfriend.”

 

“Again? Is this one as bad as the last one?” Joffrey, Jaime’s nephew, gorgeous and blond and entirely as mad as a bag of spanners in a slightly lissom sort of way, the type that attracts fawning adoration from both sexes and uses it to his entirely evil advantage, had fallen by the wayside when he was caught in some sort of illegal prostitution/BDSM sting by the Guard. Far too much like his inappropriately cougar mother who stalked the clubs for young men with big shoulders (or who looked like Jaime, which was really quite screwed up). 

 

“We can only hope. I love Margie, but her love life is a train wreck.”

 

“Shame she won’t go out with Tyrion,” Brienne sighed, helping with the fiddly side of the counterpane. “He likes sly women.” His friend had never been fond of his sister. Probably Brienne displaying her immense common sense.

 

“If he looked like Jaime, she would, but she’s so vain-”

 

“She thinks every song is about her.”

 

They grinned. Willas came around the bed and stole a hug. He came up to her collar bone, so managed to avoid any awkwardness where his face smushed into her non-existent cleavage. When they went to balls at uni, when she wore heels because Willas told her she was a goddess and deserved to look amazing (he put her in rich blues, and purples, and told her that those legs deserved to be shown, and Brienne, bless her, had listened) there was some chest/face interaction which meant they almost slept together once or twice but ended up drinking hot chocolate and watching  _ Dany the Grumpkin Slayer  _ repeats on their ancient CRT telly. Then Red Ron happened, and Brienne drew back from all men apart from Willas. She once told him that she didn’t consider him male, he was more than that, a brother, and her eyes had been wide and wet and shining because of Galladon.

 

Willas loved Brienne more than anyone (apart from Ramsay bringing blood, damn you, treacherous brain), including his family.

 

“If Jaime hurts you, I will smack him with my crutch, right in the balls.”

 

She paused, frowned. “Willas. Did you know you aren’t limping?”   


 

* * *

 


	3. III

* * *

 

 

“Hey Margie.”

 

“Darling, you’re here. Tyrion said that Jaime said that Brienne said that you were ill.” Margaery (rose pink, royal purple, roses roses roses sweet and cloying and thorned) kissed him airily upon both cheeks and dragged him to the usual booth. It became both a sad state of affairs and a vicious joy when no one else dared occupy the table the little clan gathered at most nights. Davos the Pub told them even when none of their group were in the  _ Mayflower _ , no one claimed the table. If an Outsider did, a Regular came over, said that the seats were taken, and forced the newcomer to a lesser place to perch. Tyrion lounged, half-drunk as ever, his green eye closed and black one slightly unfocused.

 

“You look surprisingly well for a man who Brienne had to manfully remove from my dustbins.”

 

“I drank too much. Sorry.” Why he always apologised to Tyrion (gold and red like Jaime, but richer, vibrant, ethanol, sarcasm, cigars and cocaine) Willas didn’t really know. The rumour was that the dwarf was one of the biggest (hah!) gangsters this side of the Narrow Sea, but all of his business dealings seemed kosher enough.  

 

“Why apologise for being drunk? That is like me apologising for it, and I never apologise for existing within my natural state. Drink? Davos, drink for my favourite Tyrell.”

 

Margaery snorted, folding herself elegantly onto a chair next to Tyrion. “Where is Bronn?”

 

“Murdering someone. He’ll be along shortly, my dear Rose of the West. Let the poor man wash the blood off his hands.”

 

“Bronn? You and Bronn?” Tyrion’s smirking weasel-handsome sidekick, who wore even more leather than Ramsay (why he kept comparing everything with Bolton seemed a complete mystery), and who drank just as hard as his little friend. “Tyrion’s Bronn?"

 

“Yes, Willas, there are so many people called Bronn in the area. It’s such a common name.” She rolled her eyes, and Willas repressed an urge to poke her. Margie always set him upon edge. Beautiful, clever (in people, and games, and politics, not like her brother’s academia), perfectly dressed, lusted after by everyone. Loras was the same ( _ sans _ brain). Even Garlan, the apple of Dad’s eye with his medals, and officer uniform, and gaggle of adorable children, seemed more Tyrell than Willas ever did. White sheep of the family, Margie called him. Nicer than all of them put together. But as he knew, being a good person did not mean getting ahead in life. It wasn’t fair, sometimes. Him and Brienne, the genuinely decent people, getting trodden all over by people like Margie. Perhaps they should suffer, perhaps-

 

He was staring at his sister’s throat. Her delicate St. Tropez golden throat, with a fluttering pulse and all that blood thick and rich and creamy and-

 

“Bloody Mary,” Davos (sea salt, decency, golden sunshine, flaking paint, and chocolate) said, jovially, plonking the glass in front of Willas. “Can I have tomorrow off, boss?”

 

“Reason?” Tyrion passed the man his empty whisky glass.

 

“Got a date.” He shifted, smiling. Happiness trailed across his senses, fresh and bright and spring green.

 

“Oh, the accountant finally got the bollocks to ask you then?”

 

At the other end of the bar, perched upon his uncomfortable seat, Stannis Baratheon (it took concentration given the distance, but purple-red, like repression, with thick heavy steel bars, grimness and filling-painful metallic) loomed. He still wore the smart expensive suit, the gold wrist watch, but the wedding ring seemed conspicuous in the absence. 

 

“I asked him.”

 

“Good man. Get Asha to cover since it’s a Saturday night and she’ll get to throw her brother out on his arse. She loves manhandling our beloved little drug dealer.”

 

“Oh man, does it have to be my frigging sister?” Theon (acid green slashed with bone-white along the edges, black like Ramsay, cannabis resin and deep ocean) slumped, defeated, called from wherever he eternally lurked by the sheer horror of people having fun without him. “She always chucks me out, she’s like totally unfair.”

 

“Don’t deal on the premises, don’t shag your boyfriend on the premises, don’t get so stoned that you are sick all over the premises, don’t have fist fights with your ex-boyfriend on the premises, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do on the premises.” Tyrion reeled them off, ticking each point on his stubby hand.

 

“You do worse on the premises,” Theon countered.

 

“Ah, but they are my premises,” Tyrion shot back. Greyjoy wandered, sulking, over to the bar that Robb Stark and his cousin propped up, seizing his beer.

 

Willas counted mentally.

 

One. Davos brought over another drink for Tyrion, half a glass of something green and stinking of wormwood. The dwarf melted a sugar cube into the sticky liquid and downed it in one. 

 

Two. Bronn appeared (cigarettes, alcohol, droplets of blood. Stormy skies with raging turquoise seas) and clambered into the booth between Tyrion and Margaery. The amusement came when the black-clad whippet kissed the dwarf on the forehead in manly greeting before kissing the woman supposedly his girlfriend. Margie flushed that poisoned green again, which he understood as jealousy.

 

Three.

 

Ramsay stalked into the pub, followed by a rather fat, bewildered looking young man with a beard, deposited the lost youth by Jon Snow, and stalked back out again.

 

Stalked back in. Stole Willas’ Bloody Mary with a slither of fingers down his spine and the promise of dinner. Downed the drink. Nodded at Tyrion. Stalked back out. Ignored Theon.

 

Theon seemed perturbed, whiteness and ice-cream terror.

 

* * *

 

He escaped for a moment or two when Brienne and Jaime (sex. So much sex. Pentoshi take out, love bites. Pegging?!) meandered over to the snug corner. Willas moved to let them settle down next to Tyrion, and took the opportunity to get some relatively cooler air in the bathroom. Davos ran a tight ship (hah!) and maintained the ablution areas to an impressively high standard. Mopped every hour, bleached. Condom machines full and in good working order. Nice soap that unfortunately reminded Willas of Varys and therefore anyone who washed their hands set him on edge.

 

“What the fuck, Willas?”

 

Theon stared at him.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Ramsay.”

 

“Oh. Yes.” He wanted to piss in private, not with a Greyjoy audience.

 

“Are you fucking Ramsay? Tell me you’re not fucking Ramsay.” Hands grabbed his forearms, fingers insanely tight. “You can’t fuck Ramsay.” White, and red, and black splashing, and yellow bile horror. “You don’t know him, you don’t know what he does, how fucked up he is, man. He’ll destroy you.”

 

“I’m not sleeping with Ramsay.”

 

The colours faded a little, relief silvering everything to a faded ancient photograph. 

 

“I sort of know what he does though. Sorry.” The man’s long fingers tightened even more, scarred and strange. Willas never noticed that before, but he never wanted to get near Theon. Who knew what sort of things could be caught just by being close to Greyjoy? “He. Well. I think you know. Bitey.”

 

“Shit. He’s feeding off you? Look, man, I know it’s really addictive, seriously addictive, and the sex is insane if he gets you to do it, but it’s not good. It’s worse than drugs, mate. He’ll push harder and harder, and then you’re almost dead and he loves that. You got to-”

 

“Um. This is really hard to explain, Theon. But out of anyone, I know that you’ll sort of understand because you’re the only person I know who has, well, dealt with Ramsay.” Willas paused, took a deep breath, extricated an arm surprisingly easily from Greyjoy’s vise-solid grip, and thought of Theon smothered in blood. Bleeding. Quirky and wanting and, well, the erection was something new, but Greyjoy’s expression changed, sharpened, feared and lusted, and the blackness thickened as the man’s breathing shuddered.

 

“Oh. Oh fuck. Willas. Your mouth. That is  _ so _ hot.”

 

Thinking of something not a willing, desperately writhing Theon (imagining Olenna naked worked spectacularly), he came back to himself with a thump, a sway, and a nose against the bathroom mirror. Behind him, in the glass, Greyjoy shivered. Fascinated horror entwined with hunger.

 

“You can totally bite me, Tyrell.”

 

“Um. That’s very kind of you, Theon, but-”

 

Against the tiled wall, the full bodily length of Greyjoy against him. Hard. Poking him.

 

“You,” he murmured and the demons danced, “can slide those fangs deep into my throat and drink whatever the fuck you want, Willas. You can do whatever dark, depraved, fucked-up shit you want to me, vampire, I’ll do anything you want-” Extricating himself, Theon colliding amusingly into the wall, Willas sighed.

 

“Seriously, I am not gay. Will people stop trying to sleep with me?”

 

“Yeah, course you aren’t gay.” Mocking.

 

“Shut up, Ramsay.”

 

The other vampire emerged from a cubicle, grinned nastily, before turning to Theon. “And you can fuck off as well, you little slut. Robb won’t want to hear his screwed-up boyfriend is soliciting in the toilets, neither will that little cunt Lannister. So take that cute arse out of here and leave me alone with your replacement.”

 

“But I’m not-”

 

“The fuck you are!” both Ramsay and Theon replied in perfect chorus.

 

“I can’t believe you’ve replaced me with a vampire, you said you would only turn me, then you go around and make Willas Tyrell of all people! Willas Tyrell!” Theon smacked at Ramsay. Willas felt rather hurt.

 

“You’re the one that went and decided to get clean, stop the kinky shit, shag Robb fucking Stark. How’s that working for you, by the way?” Ramsay smacked back.

 

“At least he is nice to me!”

 

“You wouldn’t know nice if it took you up the arse. You hate nice! You want this, you do, admit it you little shit! If you hadn’t left me, you’d be in his place.” A leather-clad hand waved in Willas’ general direction.

 

“Robb’s a better shag than you’ll ever be!”

 

“Bet I make you come harder, better, bloodier-”

 

While their anger (and lust, oh Gods, so many pheromones) meant that the attention was upon themselves and not Willas, he carefully, quietly, removed himself from the intense and volatile situation before blood and/or penises arose.

 

“Hey, Willas. Seen Theon in your travels?” Robb (greys, all greys from snow to charcoal, Theon’s sweet cannabis (really, a job in the police could be a possibility with his drug-sniffing skills, away from the tyranny of Varys) and ale) smiled in his mild, pleasant way. The fat bewildered man (milk and honey, soft caramels and suede, essence of creme brulee) and Jon Snow (fire and ice, silver turning to cherry red like being heated in a blacksmith’s forge, bitter black coffee with lots of sugar) talked avidly, heads close, the prettier of the two scribbling on a napkin with Davos’ pen. The fat boy’s hand was tucked into Jon’s back pocket, casual as you’d like. Everyone was gay apart from him and Margie, Jaime and Brienne. Tyrion and Bronn. Though Bronn had kissed the dwarf. “Think he might have gone to the bogs.”

 

What was etiquette between a boyfriend, his boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s ex boyfriend, when caught in a triangle of something? If he told Robb that Theon and Ramsay were having a screaming match (possibly leading to sex) in the bathroom, then the place could explode. If he didn’t, then Theon and Ramsay might actually get to the sex part (in the bathroom, unhygienic, fluids etc., poor Davos) and Stark would be left none the wiser. Considering the argument was over Willas himself, that could throw fuel upon the powder keg of raging. He analysed, came to a decision.

 

“Not seen him, sorry, Robb. Perhaps he went outside for a cigarette?”

 

“Thought he’d given up.” Darkly, turning back to his Guinness.

 

* * *

 

“I prefer Lannister’s place. How the fuck do you live here? Aren’t you some medical genius or some shit?”

 

Willas turned the knob on the microwave, the one he had through university. It was squat and battered, manual, the little light inside had burned out, and it stank reassuringly of tikka massala. “How long does it need?”

 

“Minute and a half.” Ramsay sat on the kitchen counter. He’d changed into a Sex Pistols t-shirt, and didn’t smell of rampant buggery. He seemed overly twitchy though, tapping his foot in mid air and fingers skating over the solid oak surface that had been reclaimed from a timber yard when Willas was refurbing the flat. “Climbing four stories to get to your fucking window, that’s shit. Why don’t we go out for tea?”

 

“How’s Theon?” Changing the subject. Theon had been texting Ramsay for days. Going out meant biting innocent humans, and he made a pact never to go down that route, even if they flung themselves at him with vigour (certain Greyjoys).

 

“A twat. Why am I addicted to him, Will? Why can’t I just settle for you, with your insane cheekbones and nice arse and frigid emotionlessness?”

 

“Because, obviously, he is as gone in the head as you.” He brought the mugs out, heavy porcelain and expensive. One for each of them. Eating together had become a thing. It seemed to keep Ramsay off the streets, so Willas considered it his community service to Flea Bottom. “He is also pumped full of drugs, and you get high off it.”

 

“True. Wonder if you could infuse some good shit into this? Fuck, drove off my only good dealer. Maybe I’ll get the number for Tyrion’s one.” 

 

Willas disliked Ramsay, blamed him for everything (because that was indeed the truth). Ramsay thought Willas a stuck-up prude (another truth, somewhat, mostly because sex was banned). They found themselves drawn together, however, through necessity. Every time Bolton brought food, Willas made it, they’d sit and watch crap telly or a DVD, Ramsay would try and have sex with him, and then they’d repeat the next evening. And the next. It had taken a little while to understand why he seemed the flame to the other man’s moth, and it turned out not to be blood, or sex, or anything so basic as that.

 

Ramsay was lonely. 

 

Willas felt sorry for him. Apart from Roose he had no one else, so latched on to the one person who relied upon something he could provide, the one person with whom he had something in common. Twisted but understandable, sort of.

 

“Yeah, Dad got some woman pregnant before he got turned, then when she dumped me on his doorstep when I was twelve, he waited until I was eighteen and then turned me.” He’d come out with it one night, when they played  _ Sonic the Hedgehog _ on Willas’ prized Sega Megadrive he had hoarded all of these years. Ramsay insisted on being Sonic, so Willas was Tails as they raced after Chaos Emeralds and bounced on Dr. Robotnik. According to the man, he’d not really had anything of a childhood. Willas wondered if that was why Ramsay was so screwed up. The capacity of Roose to love anything apart from invertebrates (and that was probably why Ramsay had this obsession with squid-obsessed Theon, like father like son) was practically nil.

 

“We’re the only two in Westeros, rest live in Essos, around old Valyria. Dad won’t turn anyone else. Said he’s got an heir to whatever the fuck he’s got. Stupid bastard. We could have an army, we could bite every fucker, turn them all, have hot Ironborn slaves wanting sex all the time, all the flaying I could do, awesome drugs. You could be my second in command, the intelligence behind the throne who wins my wars while I gut people with a gelding knife and castrate Ironborn who do not submit to the Boltons.” His accent now, away from the others, rang of the north, of the Dreadfort, of cold winters and fire-anger. It suited Ramsay better than the Mockney.

 

Roose was bitten by an undead Targaryen in the ruins of ancient Valyria when looking for new and exciting breeds of leech. 

 

Roose was weird.

 

“Valyria is a very interesting place, such a cradle of civilisation.”

 

“Stunning looking as well, the vampires. Like Dany from the telly. The things I’d do to that slayer, Will. Bet she’s filthy. Bet she likes it rough. You can see it with Drogo, the way she looks at him. That’s not acting, no. All ‘come fuck me you savage, take my frail little body and pound me until I can’t walk because of your enormous girthy Dothraki horse cock.’”

 

“She is Targaryen, apparently, her bio on IMdb says so.” He checked with a swipe of his fingers, ignoring the seventh message from Varys he’d received that day. “Yep, says her father was.”

 

“Bollocks, aren’t they all dead? Bet she dyes her hair. Want to fuck?”

 

“No, Ramsay.”

 

Instead of irritable anger, he was met with a sharp-toothed leer.

 

“Got to try. One day you might say yes.”

 

“Hell will ice over, Ramsay. Pigs will fly.”

 

“Yeah, whatever.” He leaned over, ruffled Willas’ hair, then let out a howl of triumph as they finally got the last bloody Chaos Emerald.

 

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

Willas stared at his grocery list. At least the horribleness of supermarket shopping now omitted actual food (though every so often he tried something fleshy and raw, but nothing as yet was digestible). He still hated the strip lights, the overwhelming stench of people and produce, the mixing of senses that made him feel vaguely ill as he rummaged through the shelves to find a slightly less battered looking box of tissues. Seriously, the staff must play football with the goods. At least he could come here, to this hideous homage to consumerism, at one in the morning and avoid the worst of it all. Quite a few people still milled about. A child that should be in bed dozed droolingly in a trolley, the mother harassed as she fought amongst the ice cream for whatever she craved, very pregnant and obviously pissed off. Willas tried not to scent people he did not know. It felt rude.

 

Bin bags. Yes. Tissues, yes. Bleach. Where did bleach live? He hesitated, considered, turned, and crashed straight into someone who caught him easily as the floor loomed, pulling Willas to his feet with a flex of muscles and an chuckled huff.

 

“Oh Gods, I am so clumsy. I am so sorry!”

 

“Ah, it is fine. No harm done.” 

 

Willas focussed. Willas stared.

 

The Dornishman with the bronze voice looked amused. Bronze curling languidly to verdigris. Flecks of oranges and cinnamon spicing, rich dark red Rioja and vanilla. Christmas in June. Mulled wine. Just a taste. Just a sink of teeth into the temptation of that tanned (natural, not like Margaery, none of that crap brown spray she covered herself in) throat. 

 

“I’m sorry.” Automatically. Stunned. 

 

“You seem a little dazed.” A hand (warm! Calloused at the fingertips! Dornish!) touched Willas’ wrist. If he had a pulse (and he didn’t) and if he actually breathed (and he didn’t need to, but kept in the habit so not to weird out his friends), both would have raced. “Can I help? Are you unwell?”

 

“Sorry.” Gooseflesh prickled across his back, down his arms, hairs quivering. The visceral want to feed upon this man, this insolently handsome man in a cream silk shirt (open at the neck, framing that tasty lovely delicious neck) and tight tight black jeans, overwhelmed. High cheekbones gave way to artlessly perfect two day stubble. The man’s moustache, glossy and dark as his tousled hair (which silvered at his temples and Willas wondered how old he was, because it really did not matter whatsoever because didn’t all Dornish wine improve with age?), accentuated a mouth that Ramsay (stop thinking of Ramsay, not now) would say belonged to a world champion cocksucker. That caused a shiver, a delicious roil of flesh and skin. “Sorry, I am just a little tired. Long day.”

 

“I understand.” He didn’t smile, just let the natural laughter lines at the corners of his sparkling burned caramel eyes crinkle, a faint lift to the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps you must go to bed?”

 

Bed. With the man with the bronze voice, who smelled like celebration and joy, who looked him up and down as bronze shot through with a lusty red.

 

“I’ll. Yes. Bed. Sorry. Um.”

 

Part of him expected Ramsay to saunter around the end of the aisle, hands in pockets and sneering as he told Willas that he was totally gay. Probably would try and get a threesome out of it. Willas would not have disagreed (at least not with the being gay part. He would not share the man with the bronze voice). Not then.

 

The handsome man with that voice leaned over, acres of leg and demarcation between spectacular buttocks, and a thin strip of skin where his shirt pulled free from the tight tight denim, and recovered Willas’ bin bags. When they were tucked into the crook of his elbow, when the dark-eyed man loomed over him by definitely three inches, Willas wanted to bury his face against the man’s chest and ask if he could possibly, if that was okay, and if he was not doing anything whatsoever, take this quivering Tyrell home and bugger him to oblivion. Just to check that this might be the gay thing everyone seemed to insist upon.

 

“Sleep well, sweet boy,” murmured the Dornishman, breath warm and coffee-laden against Willas’ ear.

 

* * *

 

His dreams were filled with pirate captains with lustrous dark locks, film villain moustaches, and gallons of sweet cinnamon-scented blood.   
  


 

* * *

 

“Ramsay?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Willas had volunteered to get the next round. A quiet Sunday night at the  _ ‘flower _ , the usual crowd milling about. Davos sported an impressive love bite just below his ear, in the place that looked soft and tempting, and hummed long-forgotten shanties as he poured Brienne’s IPA. Every so often, when his t-shirt sleeves slid up his solid biceps (nice arms, really, the names of his sons inked in curling script above his elbow), he spotted what were definitely nail marks still crimson upon the skin.

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

“Giss a minute.” He nudged Willas, nodding over to where Robb and Theon were obviously at an impasse, thrumming with vicious  _ schadenfreudic _ energy. The vampire’s hips touched, but neither pulled back, comfortable with each other’s presence now they understood each other that little bit more.

 

“I can’t believe you’ve been texting him. You said you were over all of that, and you’ve been going behind my back. Where’s your sense of honour, Theon? I thought we were good, yeah?”

 

“I’m sorry, I am! Just, y’know-”

 

“No, I really don’t!”

 

“You’re a bit vanilla, Robb.” Theon slurred, eyelids heavy with booze and remnants of eyeliner and something less legal. “Just sometimes I wanna do more kinky shit, and you’re great in bed, just really innocent about it all, and-”

 

Robb fixed his blue gaze on his trembling boyfriend. “You want kinky? Is that what you’re texting him for? Kinky? Is that it?”

 

Ramsay giggled, eyes glowing.

 

Stark got to his feet, seriously spectacularly drunk, fumbling at his trousers with clumsy fingers and pulling his belt free with a hiss of leather. Silver blackened, pewter loomed, with the same scarlet that pervaded the man with the bronze voice wrapping tightly about Robb, before he grasped Theon’s wrists together in one hand, slid the belt about them, and tightened the loop so the man was effectively leashed. The effect upon Greyjoy was instantaneous, just as when Willas showed his fangs. Eyes narrowed, lips parted in a half-panted moan, especially when he was dragged into Robb’s arms by a sharp tug of the hide wound about his hands. Sex. Worse than Brienne and Jaime, raw and sharp and digging and bleach-laden

 

“That kinky enough?” he growled, wolves and fur and ice, looking Theon in the eye. “Or should I wrap it round your ungrateful neck? I rescue you from Ramsay, and you want to go shag to him because you’re a pervert and you never told me what you wanted in bed? Man, you got to talk to me, yeah? We can work things out, just talk to me Theon. Tell me what you want, and I’ll try babe, you don’t need his shit.” 

 

The resulting snogging session was such that no one dared go near that corner for the next ten minutes, until Stannis, who hated mess and public shows of affection, strode over and cleared the glasses away himself. There was a lot of moaning. Lots of red.

 

Ramsay stared at Willas’ Bloody Mary morosely.

 

“Will you have pity sex with me?”

 

“No, but you can have my drink.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner was a sombre affair. Ramsay sulked, kicked things. Complained his blood was too cold, then too hot. Punched a mirror. Threatened to stab Willas in the face with a large shard of the aforementioned shattered looking glass (what was seven years bad luck to the undead?). Demanded sex. Drank half a litre of sloe gin whilst bitching about the taste. Talked constantly about Theon, who he loved, and wanted to kill, and make into his slave, and castrate with that bloody gelding knife, and adored above all other things, even his Dad. 

 

“I’ll fucking kill Robb Stark.”

 

“No you won’t.”

 

“I will, he’s got my Theon. He’s tying my Theon up. I should be tying Theon up. I know what knots he likes and all that shit. How he likes riding crops more than floggers. And electric nipple clamps with a rod that you force down the ureth-”

 

“Drink your coffee.”

 

“He won’t hurt him proper. He’ll do a stupid half-arsed job of it. I’d torture him really good, he likes me torturing him. He comes so hard he passes out, but that might be because I strangle him-”

 

“Ramsay. Drink your coffee.”

 

Willas scrubbed at the bloody mugs, head pounding. The office threatened. Varys kindly requested his presence in that softly-spoken terrifying manner of the consummate manager of an important governmental research laboratory way, gently asking Willas to explain the month-long unlawful absence from work. Of course he could not march in there and explain that he was now technically not a living person, that a highly volatile and sex-crazed depressed vampire was now practically living with him (which was awkward since the flat only had one bedroom, so Ramsay and he squabbled over who got the bed even though Willas bought and owned everything in the bloody apartment, but saying no to Ramsay was difficult most of the time, apart from when sex was upon the table (or in the shower, or wherever he accosted Willas) and impossible after his brooding grew to critical mass with the threat of nuclear explosion), and that he was recovering from being dead.

 

“Didn’t I show him enough love? Perhaps he needed more? Perhaps I should have treated him better?”

 

“You were awful to him, Ramsay.” Perhaps he finally saw the light?

 

“I know. I didn’t even get him the fucking dildo shaped like a squid he wanted, the one you could get that squirted ink when you clench down. I was a shit boyfriend. Robb Stark will buy him the squildo now.” Perhaps Ramsey did not.

 

Willas paused, frowned, and tried to purge his mind of any images.

 

“I just want someone I can fuck and flay, someone who likes being my bitch. Is that too much to ask?”

 

“Perhaps he wanted more than just sex? Perhaps he wanted someone to be nice to him, cuddle him, tell him he’s worth something. Take him to dinner and a play, kiss his hand and admire him for his personality, not just his body? Think of him as a person, not a possession.”

 

Ramsay collapsed into a seething pile of angry depression, occasionally beating the settee with his boot. Willas dropped a blanket over the vampire, paused, then ran his long fingers through the man’s tangled hair. Poor sod. Poor crazed love-struck sod. Ramsay caught his hand, nuzzled, nipped lightly at the thin skin overlying the network of veins. Nothing broke, no piercing or blood, and the gesture seemed curiously affectionate before the slight softness that was shown was forced back behind that solid wall of vulgarities and sadism and Bolton was back to his usual self.

 

“Night, you cunt. Don’t you dare try and psychoanalyse me again or I’ll stake you and fuck your ashes.” He hissed, fangs glittering, but it was obvious that the man’s heart was not in it.

 

“Never change, Ramsay.”

 

When Willas paused, just as he turned the lamp off, he saw Ramsay morosely wrap his arms around a cushion (the furry one) and bite it sadly.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed Robin from SwimmingFox for the occasion. She writes the best and weirdestly adorable Robin ever. _Saturday Kitchen_ is a BBC cooking programme that was presented by the lovely James Martin (and should be presented by the lovely Michel Roux Jr). Mary Berry is a Goddess upon the Earth, and we worship her baking perfection.
> 
> This is the Varys Chapter that people have been hinting at. More Varys fanfic, I say. Eunachs need more love, too. Obviously in this he still has the requisite parts, since we don't tend to have eunachs in 21st century Westeros/London. Unless a person is into that. No judgment here.

* * *

 

 

“Sit, Mr. Tyrell.”

 

He did. Refusing Varys (lilac and lavender edged with heavy green lace, lilies, spice, debauchery and sequins), never entered minion vocabulary. Everyone in the laboratory did exactly what their manager wanted, day or night, without question, driven by the fear of the softly-spoken bald man’s wrath. No one had witnessed a Varys tantrum. No one dared invoke one. According to departmental legend he had someone killed for not putting the requisite two slivers of lemon (and that showed an insanity that tea-loving people of the world feared greatly. What on earth drove a man to have an aversion to milk in tea? Madness, that’s what. Madness!) in his Darjeeling. No common tea bag for Varys. He took his beverage of choice with one sugar, slices of citrus, in a china cup sourced cunningly from Asshai like his tea. Silver spoon. Everything neat, and correct, and just so.

 

“Willas. Willas. What am I to do with you?” The possibilities proved horrifying. Varys probably had a dungeon somewhere, replete with leather-thonged nubile young men imported from Essos just to spank incalcitrant colleagues.

 

“I am so sorry, I’ve been unwell and-”

 

“Dearest, please do not lie. You look fitter than I have ever seen you. No crutch, you face is glowing with a sickeningly ruddy health that is quite new, and you seem a decade younger. Are you having sexual congress with someone and forgot to get out of bed for the last four weeks, hmm?” 

 

They said Varys had spies. They said Varys knew every tiny little detail of even the most intensely private scientist.

 

He leaned forward, heliotrope tie perfectly knotted into a fluffy Windsor, elegant mulberry suit snug across his plump shoulders. He may be terrifying, but the man knew how to dress for his figure (rotund in a magnificently ship-like manner). Even Jaime voiced his jealousy at the cut, the peacock gorgeous colours and the fine fabrics. When asked for the name of the tailor, Varys airily waved a plump ring-dazzled hand and said about a little man in Braavos who was wonderful with a needle.

 

Pod, wide-eyed and anxious (sherbert lemons and spun sugar, nervy peach and sweetly delicate blush pink Zinfandel grapes) carefully laid Varys’ tea on the correct area of the manager’s desk and backed away quickly. He shot Willas a sympathetic look before scarpering to the safety of his secretarial desk.

 

“Have you finally found a boyfriend?”

 

“For the umpteenth time, I am not gay.” Perhaps he should get a badge that said that exact thing.  _ Willas Tyrell: Not Gay.  _ Apart from when confronted with Dornishmen with liquid molten voices that haunted his sleep with cutlasses and ropes and wicked tongues that ravished.

 

“Of course you are not, dear.” 

 

“I got bitten by something, and it knocked me for six for a few weeks, but I am better now. Really, Varys, I am so sorry about not coming in to work. I know how time-critical the project is, and I just felt so awful that-”

 

“And the man with the impressively solid shoulders who has dinner with you at night, the dark man in leather, hmm? Quite handsome, if you squint a little. Not my taste, of course, but I could see how one might find him appealing.”

 

Willas blinked. Varys laced his fingers neatly, resting them upon the polished glass of his desk top. His scent never changed, apart from the merest suggestion of silkworm amusement fluttering softly with his heartbeat.

 

“Um, he was looking after me?”

 

“With his penis? Dearest, I know protein is a very important substance when one is ill, but please drink shakes, or actually eat meat, than having it injected every evening ora-”

 

“No! I am not having sex with Ramsay Bolton!” He looked away, crossed his arms, and did not notice Varys raise a perfectly plucked eyebrow. That scent remained level; nothing fazed, no reaction, even though-

 

“Oh dear. The Bolton child.”

 

Varys knew Ramsay?

 

The man stood, padded over to the door, and locked it rather tightly before coming back to his comfortable (evil dictator) leather chair. He seemed quite as normal (as normal as Varys ever was, which was not normal in the slightest, obviously) as he settled down but his eyes flicked over Willas in calculating fascination. “I did tell them we may have some issues with that boy, but, of course, no one listens to the scientists, do they? Is he just draining you, or has he turned you? Considering your current blooming health, I am thinking the latter? Roose will be most put out; he always worried that Ramsay might do something idiotic.”

 

“He’s not done me. Oh.”

 

“I do know about many things, Willas, dearheart. Do not forget that I am the head of this incredibly secretive laboratory, a rather high-ranking member of the civil service, and if I worry about the well-being of my staff I am not above having them followed.” He took a prettily inlaid mother-of-pearl box, opened it, offering a piece of lemon turkish delight.

 

“I can’t, sorry.”

 

“Ramsay is terribly inconsider-”

 

His mobile rang, the private one, the iPhone that lived in the crystal-encrusted case that seemed strangely at odds with Varys the Manager (but must suit Varys the Man, who always seemed to twinkle).

 

“If you would excuse me, dear.” Soft fingers answered. “Angel, how is everything?” Oddly, Varys’ expression became rather indulgent, and he shifted in his seat, sliding down the leather onto one hip as he smiled. Actually smiled. 

 

“You are perfectly right, definitely the emerald green rather than the boring old black. You must take some pictures, Robin, I know Daddy will run away and wash before I come home. Have you tried using bronzer rather than the taupe blush? It might create more of a contour. Ah, it’s a little too shimmery? We’ll have to go and buy some more, won’t we? Mattify, angel, definitely try to tone down a tad. Try and find that card for Sephora, we’ll drag Daddy with us, make a day of it all. We can go and have cake and torment him with the inferiority of it all. Aren’t we mean?” Willas boggled. Straining, he could just about pick out a high-pitched and sweet voice chattering happily. Sunshine, rainbows and glitter were never bright and excitable as the child on the phone.

 

“Kisses too, angel. Run along and tell Daddy to expect me at about seven, suggest something quick for dinner and have him slaughter a gateau for pudding. Ciao and love, my little artiste.” Varys pressed a button, and blossom obliterated everything else, all other colours, until everything in Willas’ mind swam glittery pink.

 

“My son,” Varys said, all curved lips and sparkling lilac-dove eyes. “My poor husband. Robin is very into makeup at the moment, so is practicing like the devil incarnate. Discussing drag techniques with a twelve year old is highly rewarding; how they absorb information, it’s quite fascinating really. Sweetrobin has such a talent for the arts - he doesn’t know whether he wishes to be on the stage, write bassoon symphonies, or be the next Rimbaud, hopefully without the angry symbolist lover shooting at him.”

 

“He sounds,” and Willas’ patented internal flailing  _ flailed _ . “A most singular boy?” That sounded neutral.

 

Varys flicked through his phone, on some mission, then handed it to Willas.

 

Varys took selfies. That was weird in itself. The entire thought of Varys having a life outside of the cut-throat world of science and government had never registered; Willas’ head melted just a little. In the photograph his manager had his arm around a plump and laughing man, strangely familiar, all curling hair and jiggling chins and bright eyes. Before them a boy with delicate breedy features wore fairy wings and rather jazzy stripy purple and black leggings, beaming bright and perfect and button-adorable for the camera. 

 

“Sweetrobin is adopted. Neither of us could bear the thought of breeding, so we bought one pre-made. Much easier, rather like IKEA but previously built.”

 

That tugged an unwilling grin from Willas before he remembered where that round, cheerfully florid face belonged.

 

“Oh my Gods, you are married to Hot Pie? From  _ Saturday Kitchen _ ?!” Only the best pastry chef in the whole of Westeros. Only a personal hero to an entire generation of frustrated cake makers. Only the purveyor of a fine range of baking utensils that sat uselessly in Willas’ kitchen cupboards as there was no point even attempting to make fudge cupcakes smothered with chocolate ganache and gold leaf flake any more, was there? “Your son is putting makeup on Hot Pie off  _ Saturday Kitchen _ ? Can I have his autograph? Hot Pie, not your son. Though I can have your son’s autograph if it makes everyone happy? I can bring in my copy of his book, the one where he takes breads from all over Westeros and gives them a modern twist.”

 

He hovered between awed at Hot Pie, horrified by the thought of Hot Pie in full slap, and finding both absolutely bloody brilliant.

 

“He does look stunning in emerald,” murmured Varys fondly.

 

“It’s strange,” and Willas felt he could actually sit down and talk to his manager, for the first time ever (since before the photo Varys was Terrifying and after it he was a mad bald queen with a famous husband and a gender-bending child. He felt he could actually trust the man with his awful secret because Varys trusted Willas with his privacy). “That sometimes you don’t seem human, that you don’t tell us about any of this, but I really appreciate you talking about things with me. I feel so much better about coming to work, now that we have had this conversation. Are there any Occupational Health procedures that need going through?”

 

“I still have to sack you, dearest. I only show my underlings photographs to soften the blow. Terribly sorry and all, but you are a complete liability. A shame since you are actually the only person in the lab with any ounce of sense, but there we are. Shame. I am sure you can see your way out, dear?”

 

Willas stood, straightened his shoulders, and something snapped.  _ Blood blood anger. Savage. Take his throat and tear tear down deep, drink. Lavender water blood. Laughing. Spill rip tear bite devour fuck-  _ Nope. No.

 

  
“You are the worst manager I have ever had. Your son is stupid and his fairy wings clash with his leggings. And you can tell your husband,” he snarled, fangs glimmering, intending this to hurt as much as being unfairly dismissed from his beloved wonderful job, the job that meant he didn’t have to rely on Olenna (and didn’t his Nana hate that), because this was not. On. At. All. _ Strip flesh from bone. Destroy _ . “That Mary Berry’s Victoria Sponge is twice as light and fluffy as his!”

 

Varys’ horrified gasp (and it was the cake that broke him) was worth everything as he stormed from the office, shattering the glass door with a bang.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, you look like shit.” Ramsay looked up from his (Willas’ remaining singular) beer, boots on the table as he played on the iPad. He was deep in porn, as ever, though mercifully he had taken to using headphones. Conversations had had to be had.  


 

Willas, stony faced and lashing black at everything and fangs still distended, deliberately dropped a mug on the floor. Paused. Closed his eyes. Swept up the shattered remnants. Threw them in the bin.

 

“Lost my job, and it’s all your fault.” He’d had it. Everything revolved around Ramsay. Everything. Food. Sleep. (Not sex). Socialising. “I lost. My. Job.”

 

“Get another.” He tilted his head as someone brandished a huge rubber squildo at a young man who looked like a more muscular Theon.

 

“Do you think,” and Willas snatched the iPad away, throwing it at the settee because even in a rage that was an expensive piece of equipment, “it is easy to just conjure another job off the streets Ramsay? I have a PhD in Medical Research. I am highly specialised in infectious diseases. I cured a certain type of cancer six weeks ago. I was this close to curing one of the strains of HIV. And then, from nowhere, I am turned into a vampire. By you. Because you wanted to make bloody Theon Greyjoy jealous. Theon Greyjoy of all people! Do you know how that feels, Ramsay? Do you know how it feels to have my life collapsing around my earlobes? I eat with you, I sleep with you - and don’t you dare ask to have sex, I can smell you thinking it! - I go out with my friends and there you are. I practically live with you. And the worst thing, the fly in my particular ointment, is that my manager, who is the most terrifying man in King’s Landing and therefore the whole of Westeros, sacked me because I consort with you. Because you have decided that annoying the Seven out of me is something you really need to do.”

 

Willas picked up a cushion, punched it, before smoothing over where fist hit fabric and replacing it carefully upon the settee.

 

“Look, if we fuck, it’ll calm you down. Take everything out on me, I can handle it, yeah? Be good for you.”

 

“And stop making having sex with you an actual viable option at this point in time!”

 

“Look.” Ramsay’s hand found Willas’ rigid shoulder. “You’re a vampire, we’re above all the cunts, right? We should rule them. Fuck their jobs. Fuck their everything. Fuck ‘em. You and me against the world.”

 

“Why did my manager know you?” That picked, niggled.

 

“Name?”

 

“Varys.”

 

Ramsay gaped, turned pale even for him, then recovered admirably. “And you say he know where you live?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Shit. We gotta go, Will. We gotta get the fuck out of here before anything ha-”

 

And then the door exploded.

 

* * *

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part contains my favourite swear word of all time. Possibly two of them. Extra long chapter for the end - thank you for reading.

* * *

 

 

Willas decided quite eagerly that everything was far nicer in semi-consciousness. There was blood, and he was quite sure it could actually be his because it had a dead lily undertone (Ramsay ran more angry, more dark, more angsty 1950’s playwright) and a romantic poetic sadness tending towards the consumptive. Under his face the carpet proved dusty, needed a Hoover, but he could do that later, when he stopped covering the flat in his deadness and actually woke up.

 

“I’ll fuckin’ have you, mate!”

 

Ramsay, bless him, seemed to be having fun. He was deep in that mock accent, making himself look big. He did not need to, since Bolton tended towards the terrifying even when they watched telly. Ramsay suffered from Resting Psychopathic Murderer Face.

 

“You what? I’ll beat your cunting face in, wanker! Smashin’ your bastard way into my house with my boyfriend when we was trying to have sex, you tosser!”

 

Definitely having fun. Pugilism at dawn. Protective mode tended towards the madly whirling, a simmering beaujolais with the usual blackness dripping, blackberry scented. Maybe Theon liked the jealousy? Knowing Theon, he’d be on the floor covered in blood (mostly his) madly wanking over this entire scenario while trying to persuade Ramsay to shag him, whilst hallucinating dragons or squids or whatever the drugs encouraged. The boyfriend mention seemed a little gratuitous; not that they were (not gay, apart from certain well-constructed glorious examples of Dornish manflesh), of course, but perhaps in his fighting adrenaline state, Ramsay thought it would be best to explain why two men practically lived together in a one-bed flat and sometimes could be heard screaming.

 

Ramsay over-reacted to  _ Streets of Rage II  _ (he always prefered Axel Stone because of the well-rounded character and excellent special moves, made Willas be Blaze because apparently she resembled him the most with those cheekbones, which was unfair because frankly those breasts seemed incongruous to the athleticism of the character, and he had a mind to write to whoever made computer games and request more accurate representation of females within the gaming medium, poor girl must have backache). Hells, he overreacted to  _ Echo the Dolphin _ but tended to moan less throatily when splashing about in the sea rather than beating some poor punk to death with a length of piping.

 

He breathed in out of habit, particles flew, and cinnamon filled his head.

 

“You are a strange boy, are you not? So angry. So snarling.” Curling and whip-corded and thoroughly amused.

 

Bronze.

 

He reached out, scrabbling, found an ankle that was warm and hairy. Dropped that one sadly. Flailed about a bit until leather Doc Marten skidded under his fingers. Tugged. Ramsay tried to shake him off, ranting at their assailant. No.  _ Ramsay _ . He tugged harder, more insistent.

 

“One mo,” he heard Bolton sigh to the intruder. “Sorry about this, pushy bloody children. Never have kids-”

 

“I have several daughters,” and the voice roughened just a tad and mostly unconscious Willas murmured into the carpet and got filaments stuck to his tongue as he shook Ramsay’s leg because this was really swimmingly and concussionally important. “I understand.”

 

“What the fuck, Will? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

 

“”Tesco,” he mumbled.

 

“Got a bang on the head when you fuckin’ exploded the bastard front fuckwomble door you wankstain.”

 

“Bleach.”

 

“...no, to be honest, he’s always like this. Bloody intellectuals. Christ, Will, what the fuck you on about?” Ramsay dragged him upwards with a casual hand to his neck, with a strength that possibly should be threatening but just wasn’t any more, narrowed white eyes flicking from Willas and then back to the intruder. “Stop bleeding, mate. You’ve smacked your face, yeah? What’ll I ever do with you, eh? Fainting when you could be kicking the shit out of someone and then we could feast on the body and fuck the corpse. Be a nice night in, we never get takeaway.”

 

His fangs hurt. Must have fallen on his face.

 

“Not gay, Ramsay.”

 

Feeling bruised, he turned his head (everything whirled, like a big whirly thing, octopus, squid, thingy, ferris wheels, them) and gave the man with the bronze voice the tiniest of painful (shy, blushing (could he even do that? He felt so warm and like his head wanted to explode!) oh Gods) smiles.

 

“Ah. Sweet boy. My little supermarket assailant.” Warm. Interested. Red and bronze and blackened like Dany the Grumpkin Slayer’s three-headed Dragon pendant.

 

Ramsay bristled, wrapped his arms around Willas’ waist from behind and furtively  _ snuggled _ . Willas wondered vaguely why Bolton didn’t just undo his fly and piss all over the place instead considering how possessive he ran. Not that he’d suggest it. Vampire urine haunted his poor now cranberry-tinted lavatory bowl. It would be a sod to get out of the soft furnishings.

 

“Gay for you,” mushily and drunken, and that was the concussion talking. In normal situations, when not stunned by an exploding door, Willas would have just stammered and looked at his feet.

 

Six feet of Dornishman, framed like some heroic slayer of vampires by the splintered door frame. Lots of leather. More leather than Willas could shake a stick at. Clinging. Indecently. Long boots fitting so very closely to strong, shapely calves. Ubiquitous tight clothing and that cream silk shirt unbuttoned to the point where the opened neck made the eye run over gorgeously tanned flesh straight to his interestingly built crotch. Rakish scars in fascinating places that demanded the lashing of an eager tongue. The stakes were something that possibly was not in Willas’ best interest, given the general wooden pointiness of it all, but all in all-

 

“Stop drooling, for fuck’s sake! You’re gay for him but you won’t fuck me?” Ramsay sounded hurt, burying his nose into Willas’ shoulder, fingers clenching to fists and positively ruining Willas’ sensible shirt/sweater vest combination. “Why won’t anyone fuck me, Seven friggin’ hells? I’m alright looking, I’ve got that moody bastard with an interesting past down good. I give fucking genius kinky orgasms. My torture is brilliant. I’m dangerous and everyone loves that in a bloke. My Dad’s a bloody landowner. I can get epic drugs. I look sexy as fuck in leather, better than that skinny Dornish twat, and I have an awesome collection of vintage punk t-shirts.”

 

“I think our mutual friend is concussed,” the Dornish sex-god murmured. “ _ Pretty _ boy. Where did you find him, Bolton?” 

 

“Oi, none of that thank you very much. Hands off, Martell.”

 

“That’s a nice name.” Dreamily, smiling because this was going to be perfectly fine

 

“Would you like to come with me, little vampire?” A step forward, leather on softly carpeted floors, and this Martell, this Dornishman, this glory in sands and earths and ancient metals, ran a long finger down his cheek. “It is not healthy to be with Ramsay Bolton.

 

“He feeds me. He’s nice.”

 

“Ain’t fucking nice.” Growling.

 

“Of course you aren’t.” Willas giggled, just so very comfortable. “Like I’m not gay.”

 

Ramsay tightened his grip, teeth scratching at his neck. “I am a murdering cunt, Will. Like I murdered you.”

 

“You just wanted to make Theon jealous. You didn’t mean it.” Fangs dug. Willas blinked.

 

This was wrong.

 

“Ramsay. Could you please not do that?” He was answered with another of those throat-tearing growls, another bite that dragged him back from that pleasant dizziness to a stone-heavy  _ oh fuckness _ . Ramsey’s natural blackness churned, flickering hideous green. Jealous. Possession. Fear roiled, and it was not Willas’ own, though his terror grew exponentially with Ramsay’s chewing.

 

Martell rolled his eyes, pulled a dart gun from his sleeve (and there wasn’t much room to hide anything in the man’s clothing), and shot Ramsay in the throat.

 

* * *

 

“I think he was scared you would take me away,” he explained, shaking hands making coffee. Willas still felt rather stunned, as if everything seemed just the tiniest bit overly 3-D. Ramsay slept messily, snoring, a blanket tucked around him and dribbling all over the favourite bitey cushion (the furry one that he called Greyjoy, or Reek (Willas didn’t ask, he prefered to retain some mystery), and tended to put between his thighs as he slept) under his head. “He’s still hung up on Theon, he’s a bit lonely I think. He gets a little possessive; you shouldn’t have shot him. I was dealing with it.”

 

“Your throat, Willas. It is very bad.” 

 

“Oh, that’s nothing. It should heal. Should I get him a coffee? He likes it, says it reminds him of Theon. I don’t want him waking up all shaken up.” Otherwise more mirrors would break, more settees would be flayed; no one understood how difficult it was to get slip covers these days.

 

Martell made a sound caught between a sigh and exasperation, coming at him with a wet flannel and mopping at the deep punctures.

 

“You haven’t hurt him, have you?”

 

The cloth dropped to the surface, strong hands wrapping about Willas’ upper arms and stopping him from fussing at the kettle. “He killed you, and yet you worry. Are you stupid? Or are you just kind? He keeps you as a slave, and yet you wish for him to be unhurt. I do not understand.”

 

“Well I never!” Shrugging back, crossing his arms. How dare this man (gorgeous, sexy, insanely hot, tight trousers). How dare him indeed. “I cannot believe you burst into my flat, without even knocking, you shoot my friend in the neck with I have no idea what. You stand here and tell me that I am stupid, which I have you know I am not, and you just are there being ridiculously handsome and assuming, and I am not at all happy at your conduct-”

 

“You think I am ridiculously handsome?” Purring. Stupid sexy purring Dornishman.

 

“That is not the point. Stop changing the subject.”

 

“Willas,” and Oberyn touched his cheek with trailing warmth. “He murders. He kills. Ramsay Bolton is an evil vampire, not like you. You are still humane. You feel how others must feel. He does not care for anything apart from hurting, death, and sex. You do not slaughter for food. He killed you to drink from you, and I think, yes, that he did not wish you to rise again? Perhaps you are an accident? He did not mean you to live.”

 

“But I did,” Willas ploughed on. “And I would have died horribly again if he hadn’t turned up and explained what on earth was going on. Yes, I am upset at him, I just lost my job because of him. But he fed me, Oberyn. He brings me blood bags, and he drinks them, so he’s not stalking the streets looking for necks. And he’s-” Flailing again. “He’s okay. He’s nice to be around quite a bit  of the time - keeps me company. We watch telly, and end up at the pub, and I think I’m a good influence, and he’s sort of a friend, almost. Even the others think he’s not as creepy and weird any more. I just feel so sorry for him. Roose Bolton as his Dad, and no one else to understand what he’s going through. And yes, he was appalling to Theon, but I think Theon encourages him. He was texting for ages, until Robb- Hang on. How do you know all of this?”

 

“Not stupid. A _ nice _ pretty boy,” and Oberyn flooded with a tealishness that Willas could not understand, all rich and smooth.

 

“I am twenty eight, I have you know.”

 

The look Oberyn Martell, strapped with stakes and wearing leather and those boots (which should stay on at all times, especially in bed, and was there a riding crop and nothing else but those boots and a linen shirt soaked from a pond, and Gods, Darcy!), gave him crawled and seared over every  inch of Willas’ body. Lingering at certain places. Even places that did not seem overly enticing, like his wrists, or an ear, or the freckles on his hands. Nostrils. Who stared at nostrils? Dornishmen, that is who.

 

“A nice pretty  _ man _ .” Cinnamon twisted pastries smothered in soft buttercream, and thick glossy wine, and the hunger that he sensed in Ramsay when he saw a juicy neck on a passer-by, or when he leered at violence on the TV. Or. Or the other, darker things. The movement of Davos’ chest as he smoked his pipe. Brienne’s bare muscled back. Jaime’s handless scarred stump. Stannis’ wrists, skin tender under ironed cotton and expensive wool (but never Tyrion and possibly Bronn, and definitely not Robb Stark). Jon Snow’s rare serious smiles, that tugged unwillingly, and disturbingly girlish lips. That nice young Sam’s round fleshy cheek, pink and fresh. Margie’s perfect (and yes she was his sister but everyone told him that they were, and she did wave them about) breasts. Everything about Theon.

 

Mindless, wanting, helpless head-breaking lust.

 

Ramsay wanted to fuck the world. Of course he did. Fight, fuck, eat. Not necessarily in that order. Vampires in a nutshell. The extent shocked him, but not as much as possibly it should. It explained so much.

 

“Red, everything is constantly red because he wants to shag everything. I thought it was his normal state, but, well it is, but. Oh, I know what I mean.” He coughed a laugh. “Ramsay wants to sleep with literally everyone we know, apart from perhaps two or three, and he might try Bronn because of the leather. Not Tyrion though, he’s got some sense of preservation. And Robb, of course, even hate-sex wouldn’t cover that.”

 

Martell looked confused. It suited him.

 

“Sorry, when I smell things they turn to colours in my head.”

 

“What colour am I, precious little vampire?” Martell caught Willas’ chin, cupping his face, thumb brushing over his mouth. “Do you always breathe? How human of you.”

 

“Yes, I do. I don’t want to scare anyone.” The thumb pressed lightly between his lips, stroking his eye-tooth (which could elongate, bury through flesh, and blood would flow, and he could suck and suck and-) “Oh Gods. Bronze. Red. Red like Rioja, and strawberries, and there is bitter-sweetness there, like silicone and lightning-struck sand and dark chocolate, and the desert after the rains.”

 

“A poetic scientist. A renaissance man. Someone loved wine, yes?” He pulled his hand away, and very deliberately licked Willas’ saliva from his thumb.

 

“I can’t even drink wine. I want to, and I always buy a drink when we go out, but Ramsay steals it so I don’t have to explain that I can’t stomach alcohol. It’s thoroughly frustrating. Maybe as I get older, or whatever happens, I may grow tolerant. I was going to use my own tissue samples to try and build a database of whatever I am, but since I am now unemployed that has fallen by the wayside. Perhaps it is a little sick, the scientist experimenting upon himself. Perhaps there is something I can find in my genetic structure that could mean eating one day, or having a nice glass of wine. Even not having to rely on blood - how wonderful-”

 

He was silenced by a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, and red, for the first time voluntarily, spattered across his default of yellow roses, trailing ivy, and turn-of-winter wistfulness. 

 

“You talk. Others may think too much, but I find you charming.”

 

“I babble when I get nervous.”

 

“And I make you nervous?”

 

“I still have no idea why you are in my kitchen, or why you shot poor Ramsay, or if he will be okay. Wouldn’t you be-?” So much weaponry. No, Oberyn Martell would never be nervous. He was too (hot, alpha as hell, well-endowed) confident to feel that.

 

“I was asked to check you are well, little vampire, by our mutual Governmental acquaintance. This is a welfare check. You are so new and shiny. We must make sure you are not unduly influenced.” He glanced to where Ramsay quietly twitched, Bolton mumbling something about defenestration. “But I must admit you seem to have power over the vampire who made you. He seems to listen to you. To see Ramsay Bolton listen to another other than his father. You must be very persuasive…”

 

“I.” Willas shook his head. “This will sound silly. I treat him like I treated my brother, Loras, who is quite as headstrong and twice as annoying, when he was younger. Play computer games together, talk to him about things. Watch telly, listen when he gets into a black mood about Theon, and that is a lot. Poor bugger. He threatens me, he tries to have sex with me at least once a day, but he never does anything to me, not really. He’ll do as I say most of the time. Tonight was because he was scared, because I think he’s let his guard down and has allowed himself to have some sort of emotional connection with someone apart from his bloody father. I think we’ve got a bond, really. He looks out for me with vampire things, and I look out for him with human things. It works.”

 

“Almost a relationship.”

 

“Oh no! No. Not at all. I’m not gay.” He forced the next words out because, obviously, Oberyn Martell lounging before him being infuriatingly sexy Darcy to Willas’ clever, sensible, still rather blood-stained Lizzy. “Apart from for you. I am quite gay for you. You sort of make me think things. Gods, I sound like a right tool.”

 

“Sexuality is a human construct that must not bother you. Take pleasure in what you wish. Do not label yourself, sweet one. I take pleasure in many things. Many beautiful, wonderful things. Human, or not.”

 

If he were not talking to a vampire, Oberyn Martell could sound really bloody dodgy.

 

“There are other of, well. Like vampires. I don’t know. Zombies, or werewolves? That type of thing?”

 

“Ah yes, Ramsay would not know. The government knows, yes. Roose will not have told him.”

 

“Will you tell me?”

 

“Perhaps one day.” Another maddening soft kiss, to the opposite corner of his mouth ( _ deeper, dark bite shag mine drink Dornish wine from the source throat skin _ ) “You will come to dine with me?”

 

“I can’t really eat-”

 

Oberyn took his hand, and Willas fell (in love like some love-struck heroine from a romantic froth of a novel, idiot, stop that) against the kitchen counter as the man kissed where wrist met the base of his palm. Lingered, heat and life. He looked Willas straight in the eye and, as the man smiled sharkishly (full of mellow ripe fruits and Dornish promise, and now he was on to bloody poetry!) Oberyn nipped at still veins and white flesh.

 

* * *

 

Davos deposits the Bloody Mary (love bite in the same place. Stannis could have vampiric tendencies. Stannis would be an old-school vampire in a castle on an island somewhere who lurks. Stannis lurking. Not the castle), and Ramsay promptly steals it, stalking away with a nefarious expression upon his white face. He ignores Theon, who still finds it hard not to stare at the compact black-clad figure, even as Robb Stark kicks him on the ankle yet again. Approaches a booth. The man there, in his mid thirties and red-gold haired, severely and wickedly scarred, looks up from his pint, nods companionably, slides along the banquette for Bolton to settle next to him. Ramsay’s companion is tattooed heavily, (even to Willas’ untrained eye they are seriously well-done) full sleeves of fire from knuckles to broad, heavy shoulders. Muscled, and rippling under a simple dark t-shirt, and he allows the vampire to bite his ear with an affectionate tolerance. Any blood is lapped away quickly. One of those thick arms (Margie calls him fit as fuck, and stares open-mouthed. No one ever told Willas this is a gay pub, taking cynical advantage of the pink Dragon. Tyrion finds the Tyrell inattention hilarious) drapes about Bolton’s back. A battered hand pushes through his hair, ruffles fondly. The man is flames, and smoke, naturally endlessly red in colour, suggesting salted flesh like pig meat, and stinks of Ramsay.

 

Who smirks in that inimitable, vicious way of his, hissing and pleased.

 

“It was inspired, Oberyn.”

 

“The most unkillable of playmates. It keeps Ramsay contained.” Oberyn drinks expensive red wine, as is expected, and seems at home in the  _ Mayflower _ . Tyrion has ordered several cases of his favourite tipple after realising that a man wielding a black card with unlimited credit, one from the Iron Bank, will provide an excellent cash cow.

 

“Where did you find him? Is he even-?”

 

He is silenced by a tease of a kiss, an arch of those dark (athletic, like their master, and Willas is so very gay these days because of that bendiness) eyebrows. 

 

“A secret, pretty one. I have sources.” Totally Varys. Varys knows everyone, everything. He has fingers in many pies (especially certain Hot ones). They visited for high tea (so much cake he couldn’t eat) a week before, Willas clutching good dessert wine and apologising. His manager listened, then nodded, drew Willas in for a surprisingly comfortable one-armed hug (squishy, but not as squishy as Hot Pie, who was even larger in real life than on the telly, and loudly chatty, and only slightly more butch than Varys), and scolded him in the manner of the terminally, archly, and evilly camp. Robin, in a cute black and purple dress (with jeans, and those frothy ankle socks, and purple Doc Marten boots, and sparkling wings) proved the most adorably weird child ever. He made Willas read Caliban to his Ariel, and insisted upon stage directions, and it was brilliant. Willas was even given blood, and none of the strange family seemed ill at ease with a fumblingly embarrassed attempt to stop his fangs popping out.

 

“He seems nice.”

 

“Beric is very good. Very strong. I think he proves a challenge rather than the Greyjoy. He proves less easy to break, and it intrigues our little Ramsay. He is no wanton, like Theon. He is a man.” His expression heats. “And men are more fun than boys, yes?”

 

Willas swallows.

 

When Oberyn kisses him, a linger of heat (dizzy-making, epic, oh Gods) he always finds pulse points. He targets where vampires bite because he has a little thing for that. Oberyn is kinky in the way of the unabashedly hedonistic, giving and generous and utterly unshockable. The things he murmurs in Willas’ innocent ear are scandalous, and half of them are said just to see the pink stain those sculpted cheekbones.

 

Willas has been told every day for the last eight months that he is delicious, and lovely, and worthy, and quite perfect in his vampirism, and has the best cheekbones of them all. Then there is sex. Oodles of it. He sometimes wonders if Oberyn is addicted to shagging, then wonders if that is truly a bad thing. They have been seeing each other for eight months and Martell has never once strayed. Apparently it is some sort of a record. He marks it upon his Android phone calendar with a flourish. Sometimes he pins Willas and purrs filth about pirates and jolly rogerings. Sometimes Willas is Darcy. Sometimes they just even make love.

 

“We’re off.” Ramsay seems to be vibrating. “We got a fuckin’ date with some knives. Some sexy sexy flaying knives. Someone’s gonna bleed like a bitch.” Beric is with him, silent and ruined. The Anti-Theon. All heavyweight robustness  and entirely unkillable (albeit missing bits, but he turned up one day missing bits, stared at Ramsay, and explained in excruciatingly technical (and erotic to Bolton who possibly came in his jeans) detail how they were going to explore the limits to which a body could be pushed. Oberyn tried to appear innocent in the matter and failed utterly). “This bastard will break one day.”

 

“Keep trying,” rumbles Dondarrion. “I can take everything you throw at me. Try harder, Ramsay.”

 

“Challenges make me hard as fuck.” He happily scratches the man, who lets him open a vein with his fingernail, watching the blackish blood (not human, so not human) trail before smearing the liquid into the inked flames. “When you break you will be so fucking perfect, Corpse.”

 

“Just have to make it happen, then, Bolton.” They both seem happy, and it is weird and sort of nice that two such people could find a nirvana. He is convinced that Beric isn’t human. His scents paint far broader. No delicacy, just brashly there. He asked, tentatively, and Beric said something about Myr and Red Priests and the Dawn, but it never made any sense. There are others here too, others who smell ‘off,’ but Willas has not discovered who the others are.

 

Beric likes setting himself on fire, just because he can. He puts a lighter to his arm, prepped and dripping with brandy, and just idly watches the flames. Tyrion charges for people to spectate. Obviously.

 

Ramsay is in love, as much as a rampaging psychopathic vampire can be with a self-immolating mostly dead pyromaniac. It is...sweet.

 

“Later, Will. Totally gay.”

 

Willas smiles, and touches his friend’s arm with light fingers. 

 

“Later Ramsay. Never change.”

 

* * *

 


End file.
